Women are being remembered at Jamestown Settlement all year during a new exhibition, and now the settlement will tackle a different aspect of women in history: War.
“It’ll be moving, educational and uplifting,” said Cindy Daniel, interpretive program manager for the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. “It’ll be the acknowledgement that women have been involved in military campaigns long through history not just in the 20th century.”
The annual “Military Through the Ages” event at Jamestown Settlement on March 16-17 will take a twist this year — it features a special salute to women’s roles and contributions to military in times of war.
Since 1984, the event has opened spectators’ eyes to the different uniforms, encampments and weapons during wartime. This year’s special focus on women will allow visitors to learn about the vital roles women had across all ages of world conflict, according to the news release.
This year’s special focus comes during a year of featuring women’s stories during the settlement’s 2019 TENACITY exhibition. The exhibition’s goal is to tell the untold story of women in the 17th century and connect their relevance to present day.
“As the first permanent English settlement in America, Jamestown plays a huge role in the founding of our nation, and women were an essential part of that effort,” Robin Phillips, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel who worked on the program said. “By highlighting women’s roles supporting military operations throughout history at this year’s annual Military Through the Ages program, we are calling attention to their key contributions not just at Jamestown, but in a larger historical and geographical context.”
A program on March 16 will have re-enactors portraying roles from nurses, cooks and tailors to soldiers, pilots and mechanics.
As part of the program, visitors can view the weaving and leather-working from women in Scara Karoli from the year 778.
For interactions with more modern roles, visitors can take a look at what field telephone operations and message delivery was like for a German Army signals company.
Additionally, information on the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps of 1944 will be available to teach about women as typists, telephone operators, supply clerks, cartographers and engineers.
There will also be representatives from the U.S. Army Women’s Museum to highlight the history of women in the armed forces.
“Women’s history is an important part of our overall history, and there is still a lot of new information being uncovered about women’s contributions and the full scale of their impact on events,” Phillips said.
In addition, the two days will feature a timeline from the first century to the present-day Virginia Army National Guard. There will be more than 500 re-enactors to portray soldiers and military encounters from Roman times, to the medieval period. The timeline will feature information on the Hundred Years’ War, War of the Roses, American Revolution, War of 1812, Napoleonic Wars and American Civil War.
For those interested in more modern reenactments, there will be depictions from World War I and World War II that will take visitors through the 20th century.
There will also be comparative artillery-firing demonstrations on March 17 at noon. Weapons will range from a 17th-century swivel gun to a modern-day howitzer.
At 3 p.m. on March 17, there will be a military pass-in-review where re-enactor units will be judged on campsites and field demonstrations. There will be awards for visitors’ and re-enactors’ choice for the top reenactment unit.
If there are those that can’t make it to the events that weekend, the settlement features year-round military information through exhibits, galleries and feature films.
For information on tickets and pricing as well as a full schedule of events, visit Jamestown Settlement online.
